The Rochester Garfield, McKinley and Harrison would have encountered. Birdseye view, 1880 by Beck & Pauli. Owned by Matt DeLaus and displayed at Earth Day events on Parcel 5, April 22nd, 2018 [Photo: David Kramer]

The entirety article proved to be premature. By consulting biographies and sifting through the archives, Michael J. Nighan uncovered the campaign visit of Republican nominee James Garfield — elected president four months later — on August 4th, 1880. Garfield was accompanied by William McKinley and Benjamin Harrison. President Harrison would revisit Rochester in 1892, as did McKinley campaigning for Harrison in his re-election bid against Grover Cleveland. McKinley returned as president in 1897. Hence the trifecta.

Nighan believes finding Hayes is unlikely. Nighan does make a problematic case for Arthur. As a young boy, Arthur’s family lived in Perry and York, NY where Arthur’s father was a minister. Surely — perhaps — Arthur made a trip to Rochester, only 44 miles away. Whether this constitutes a presidential visit is debatable.

Nonetheless, Arthur’s time in Perry and York would make him one of three presidents who lived in western New York, alongside Fillmore and Cleveland.

The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.

– James A. Garfield

Rochester has the somewhat dubious distinction of having been visited at one time or another by Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, the four presidents who became victims of an assassin’s bullet. On an eerily similar note, on August 4, 1880 the city played host to a simultaneous visitation by three future presidents,Benjamin Harrison, plus two of four who would ultimately be assassinated; McKinley, and that year’s Republican presidential nominee, 48 year old James Abram Garfield.

As background, when the 1880 Republican convention opened in Chicago in June, the party was split between the “Stalwarts” (supporters of the spoils system and machine politics) and the “Half-Breeds” (advocates of civil service reform, derided by their opponents as being only “half Republican”). The Stalwarts supported former president Ulysses S. Grant for an unprecedented, albeit non-consecutive, third term, while the Half-Breeds backed Sen. James G. Blaine, the “Plumed Knight” of American politics. After 35 ballots, with neither the Grant nor the Blaine forces able to gain a majority, Blaine admitted defeat and directed the Half-Breeds to back dark horse candidate, Congressman and former Union general, James A. Garfield, who was nominated (to everyone’s surprise, including his) on the next ballot. As a sop to the Stalwarts, and recognizing the importance New York would have in the election, Chester A. Arthur, the “Gentleman Boss” from New York City was selected as Garfield’s running mate.

But the Garfield victory, based on Half-Breed backing, made it obvious that some high level political fence mending with the Stalwarts was called for. With the leading Stalwart on the list being New York’s Republican boss Roscoe Conkling.

While loath to make a deal with machine politicians, Garfield realized that New York’s bonanza of 35 electoral votes, by far the largest number of any state, would likely prove decisive in determining the winner in November.

Matters were ultimately taken out of Garfield’s hands when the secretary of the Republican National Committee unilaterally sent out invitations to over a hundred Republican leaders of all factions to meet with the candidate at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City on August 5. Left with no option, Garfield agreed to travel from his home in Mentor, Ohio specifically to meet with the Conkling’s representatives (Conkling, disliking Garfield as much as Garfield disliked him, refused to attend). Garfield later complained that it was unreasonable, “that so much effort should be made to conciliate one man.” In planning the trip, Garfield and his advisors calculated that reaching New York City via Buffalo and Albany, while more circuitous than traveling the direct easterly route from Ohio, would give Garfield some much-needed political face time in a key state.

Boarding a chartered train in Mentor on August 3, Garfield immediately broke with the long-standing tradition that presidential candidates forswear personal campaigning and began making the first of what would be 20 stops along the route to New York City, engaging in what biographer Allan Peskin later described as:

Safety in statesman-like blandness, praising every town he passed, admiring the virtues of its citizenry and the beauty of its sunsets, but begging off from political discussions that might offend the propriety of the occasion.

New York Central Depot, Rochester (1852 – 1883)

This approach apparently bore fruit as the crowds grew larger until, after the candidate was joined by Benjamin Harrison and Congressman William McKinley, the train reached Buffalo late that evening where Garfield was stunned to be greeted by fireworks, cannonades, a torchlight parade and a crowd variously estimated at from 10,000 to 50,000 (although the lower numbers seem more likely given the lack of advanced notice of Garfield’s arrival). After being escorted to the Palace Hotel, Garfield gave a two minute speech, doubtless replete with platitudes.

Leaving Buffalo early on the 4th., Garfield’s train rolled down the tracks of the New York Central arriving at the Rochester depot on Mill Street, in today’s High Falls district. Garfield was scheduled to arrive at 8:40 am, with ten minutes scheduled for his reception. But miracle of miracles, the train arrived 40 minutes EARLY, totally discombobulating the plans of the reception organizers. Mocking the efforts of the local Republican committee, the city’s Democratic newspaper, The Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser reported that:

A band of some half dozen musicians dressed in citizen’s clothes was engaged and played several airs in front of the Court House to attract attention…while the band was actively engaged in trying to draw up a crowd, Mr. Garfield and his friends were waiting at the depot for someone to call on them…a Union reporter sauntered to the train and arrived in time to find…an enthusiastic crowd of some 500 people…. ‘Which is General Garfield?’ asked a bystander. ‘The one leaning up against the car,’ responded another. ‘Looks sick, don’t he?, ejaculated a third. ‘Yes, and he’ll look even sicker after the fourth of next November’, opined the first man.…(Among the speakers) Mr. Harrison commenced by stating that his voice was so weak that it was doubtful if he could make his voice heard, and this proved to be true. After a few minutes he gave way to William McKinley, and while this gentleman was speaking the train moved out…

Democrat and Chronicle Aug. 4, 1880. Scanned courtesy on the Local History Room of the Rochester Public Library.

On the other hand, the Democrat & Chronicle, at that time the city’s leading Republican newspaper (each edition featured the headline, “REPUBLICAN NOMINATIONS – FOR PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD OF OHIO – FOR VICE-PRESIDENT CHESTER A. ARTHUR OF NEW YORK”), euphorically wrote:

“Welcome, Garfield, to Rochester!

Welcome, Garfield, to the high place in popular esteem you have won by the force of your genius and worth.

Welcome, Garfield, to the hearts of your admirers, who believe you to be as void of reproach as of fear.

Welcome, Garfield, to the suffrages of the people, and thrice welcome to the highest office and the supremest distinction Americans can confer upon him whom they delight to honor. “

Interestingly enough, although the D & C, contradicting the Union, stated that “thousands” were on hand to greet Garfield, and although he was introduced to the crowd by New York’s Lieutenant-Governor, neither that newspaper, nor any other newspaper, reported that he actually gave a speech! The Lieutenant-Governor gave one. Benjamin Harrison gave one. William McKinley gave one. But Garfield remained silent, even though just an hour or so previous he’d offered a few remarks at a stop at the bustling metropolis of Batavia, and would later say a few words at Lyons when the train stopped there. Perhaps Garfield was suffering from hoarseness. Perhaps he was honked off by the poor showing Rochester made compared to his Buffalo reception. Or perhaps he was simply tired. The records are as silent as the candidate on this point.

After picking up his running mate, Chet Arthur, in Albany, Garfield continued on to New York City to meet with the party big wigs. All-but-selling-out his Half-Breed supporters in order to improve his chances of carrying New York, Garfield hedged on civil service reform, promising the Conklingites and other Stalwarts not to make any political appointments without consulting with them first. Though the news of the meeting released to the press was vague and nonspecific, reporters quickly branded the conference, “The Treaty of Fifth Avenue,”handing the Democrats a powerful propaganda weapon to use against Garfield.

Results of the United States presidential election in New York, 1880. Red=Garfield; Blue=Hancock

The November presidential election became one of the closest in American history with Garfield defeating Democratic candidate (and fellow Union general) Winfield Scott Hancock by 48.27% of the popular vote to 48.25%. Although winning the Electoral College by a far more impressive vote of 214 to 155, carrying New York by a mere 20,000 votes out of a total of 1,090,000 votes cast made it clear that picking a New Yorker for his running mate and agreeing to the “treaty” were pragmatic moves on Garfield’s part. Hancock and the Democrats, although convinced that Republican fraud had cost them New York and the White House, were wary of a reprise of the hotly-disputed election of 1876, and opted to let matters drop.

The Assassination of Garfield

Sadly Garfield, serving just over six months of his term before succumbing to a bullet in the back fired by crazed assassin Charles Guiteau, left no particular legacy, except perhaps that as subject material (along with three other ineffectual Republican presidents) for Thomas Wolfe’s 1934 monograph, “The Four Lost Men”…

Garfield, Arthur, Harrison and Hayes…were the lost Americans: their gravely vacant and bewhiskered faces mixed, melted, swam together in the sea-depths of a past intangible, immeasurable and unknowable.

Rochester in 1853 at the time of Fillmore’s visits. Reproduced in 1973 by HISTORICAL URBAN PLANS, Ithaca, New York from a lithograph in the Cornell University Library. This is number 208 of an edition limited to 500 copies. [Owned by David Kramer]

Election Day, 2016. Note: the photo of me holding the ballot sleeve does not technically violate New York Election Law § 17-130(10) as I did not show my completed ballot. The state law makes it a misdemeanor for any voter to show their ballot “after it is prepared for voting, to any person so as to reveal the contents,” or for anyone to solicit a voter to show their ballot after it’s been prepared. The logic is that such a prohibition prevents people from selling their vote and being able to prove that they did so.

1. After reviewing the series, Nighan commented:

Everyone seems to be covered. Democrats, Republicans, Democratic-Republicans, Whigs, Know Nothings, and monarchists. I’m pretty sure we have all visits by incumbent presidents covered. But I suspect that, given the transportation network (Rochester being on one of the two main railroadroutes from the west to NYC and DC, albeit the lest direct route) and the proximity of the scenic delights of Niagara Falls for those traveling from the east, a few future presidents (such as Garfield) and some ex-presidents (Hayes and Arthur seem the likeliest) may have passed through Rochester without making a splash. I’ll keep checking. I must admit though that the comprehensive-looking list of presidential visits issued by the Association for a Buffalo Presidential Center doesn’t have a record of visits by those three either. Seems difficult to believe that every president from Cleveland to Trump has stopped here at one time or another, but during Rochester’s boom town days after the completion of the Erie Canal, and while New York was the most populous state in the Union, so many past/future presidents ignored us.

Talker of the Town is a continuation of conversations begun in three Democratic Chronicle blogs: Make City Schools Better, Unite Rochester and the Editorial Board.
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